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February 28, 2007
Scary Dairy: The Final Installment
We had a couple of boisterous American sales guys barge into the office today with a sales pitch and treats for all-- buttery frosted cupcakes from some well-known bakery (why isn't the cupcake crazy over yet?) and two huge jugs of whole milk. Only dudes would bring whole milk (and cupcakes) to an office full of diet-obsessed women and think themselves clever for doing so. Japanese adults don't even drink milk straight up. As my co-workers carefully ate their cupcakes knife-and-fork style, the guys poured us all huge cups of milk. No one took a cup. The secretary offered to make coffee instead and everyone, except the Americans with their milk mustaches, was quick to applaud that as a much better idea. I understand. I don't drink milk like that either. It's gross. I like to think of milk as condiment rather than a stand-alone beverage. With coffee, over cereal, a splash here and there. But by the pint? I'll never understand the allure. As the wise Will Farrell once said- "Milk is a bad choice."
I just rented a soft-serve ice cream machine that the crew can bring with them to Nova Scotia for you know what. Unbelievably, they didn't even ask me what we'll be using it for. Mmm, who wants a cone? I'll take a glass of milk, thanks.
Posted by debbie at 10:37 AM | Comments (0)
February 27, 2007
Not to fetishize the elderly or anything, but the cute granny pictured above has had me practically in tears today. Olive is the world's oldest blogger. She's 107 years young and isn't she adorable?
Here she is enjoying a shandy (she's Australian). And here she is relaxing in the pool with a much younger gentleman.
She might refer to her blog as a "blob" but she's still an inspiration to bloggers everwhere.
Cheers to you, Olive!
Posted by debbie at 4:04 PM | Comments (0)
February 26, 2007
"The alarm clock that runs away and hides when you don't wake up. If you snooze, Clocky will jump off of your nightstand and wheel around your room looking for a place to hide."
I think I need a Clocky.
Posted by debbie at 2:08 PM | Comments (0)
February 8, 2007
The Rub Down
I feel so relaxed and limber right now. I took an embarrassingly long lunch hour to get a massage, a belated anniversary gift. The last time I got a massage was when we were on vacation a few years ago in the Napa Valley, home of world famous mineral waters and mineral-rich mud. We had just emerged like swamp monsters from a "romantic" private mud bath and decided to spring for a couple's massage. As we lay eagerly waiting on separate massage tables, imagining that some sexy Swedish couple (maseuss stereotypes die hard) would soon spring out from behind the curtain, we couldn't figure out which one of us should get the masseur and which one of us the maseuss. In the end, it hardly mattered who got whom because both were equally hideous and ill-trained. I don't get how couple's massages are supposed to be romantic. We were only able to look at each other from a distance as these non-Swedish strangers' hands roughly groped and manhandled our bodies and, after an hour of this, it seemed messed up that we were the ones that had to pay for the service, and then tip. Anyhow, my neck has been killing me lately so it was high time for another massage. Last week, I accidentally ordered "extra firm" pillows from Overstock.com, normally a trustworthy site full of bargains (plus they ship anything for $2.95). These pillows were not merely "extra" firm though-- they were "fuck-your-neck-up" firm. After one night, my right arm was left feeling all weak and wonky and my shoulder blade area and neck were feeling really tight. I could hardly turn my head without a sharp pain extending from my neck down to my fingers. She really worked a number on me though, wow; it was like being shot with a tranquilizer dart. But I was so disoriented walking out of there, all oiled up and tenderized, I mistakenly got on the subway going the opposite direction from my office. When I realized I was heading further downtown, I contemplated just going home for the day but, alas, here I am back at the seal milk factory...
Tomorrow I'm going to be on television again.
Eating octopus balls.
Aren't you glad you clicked on the "continue reading"?
Posted by debbie at 3:17 PM | Comments (0)
February 6, 2007
Things That Amused Me Today
Because I Am Easily Amused:
- Receiving an order of four teeny tiny silver-dollar size tacos for the price of $14 and watching the look of utter confusion on Rafe "Taco King" McBride's face.
- Finding out that pop music can turn your kids gay. I had a hunch but this just confirms it. This friendly Christian website lists gay bands for parents to watch out for. Be especially wary of Bjork, The Grateful Dead, and Frank Sinatra. These musicans are gayer than gay with horrible messages about gayness, which is horrible. Also be wary of George Michael, because he is apparently from Texas.
- Reading this article about this totally nuts astronaut by a reporter who didn't use any discretion in regards to the story's details:
"Nowak raced from Houston to Orlando wearing diapers in the car so she wouldn't have to stop to go to the bathroom, authorities said. Astronauts wear diapers during launch and re-entry."
Hey, it's been a slow day.
Posted by debbie at 2:54 PM | Comments (0)
February 5, 2007
I watched the SuperBowl yesterday. The entire game. I didn't know I had the stamina to make it through four hours (was it even four? I lost count) of football, but somehow I persevered, even through Prince's half-time treat to America singing Purple Rain (in the rain). I had little idea of or interest in what was going on other than that one team was called the Bears and the other the Colts. At least it provided a good opportunity to get some reading in. I read several BudgetTravel magazines back to back, picking up some useful tips for a tropical vacation we're fantasizing about taking sometime in the Spring. But you know, I rather enjoyed myself. There was guacamole and blueberry pie and friends and 40s of Corona. AND I won THREE dollars. It was all so darn low-brow American and wholesome. You know what else is really gosh darn American, so fucking American it hurts because I am laughing so hard? A president, someone who has literally endless resources and money at his disposal, who subsists solely on white bread and Kraft singles.
So the weekend was one marked by hibernation, except for the SuperBowl party and a two second shuffle across the street for brunch. Rafe was knocked out with some sort of sinus infection so like any good Jewish grandmother, I fed him back to health. I cooked up a batch of baked ziti, meatloaf, and a killer pumpkin pudding (no matzoh ball soup- I mean, I'm only half-Jewish here, and not even the right half). Sometimes hibernation and meatloaf are all you need during a freezing winter weekend. Other than that, we watched some steamy movies, and caught up on some errands like selling our old bed frame on Craigslist. I could hardly believe it when the doorbell rang and a stranger handed over a wad of twenties in exchange for a pile of splintery wood planks and a bag of worn-down screws.
Off to meet Vince for some arepas. Haven't seen him in ages. He's been living the good life of a traveling business man: first class travel, swanky hotels, room service, etc. He called me last week and I hadn't spoken in a while, whereas usually we speak everyday.
"Hey I'm staying at this hotel and I can see the Hollywood sign from my window. Yeah, it's pretty fresh alright and it's 80 degrees out. I was just at the beach. It's 10 below out there? Gosh, and you slipped on some ice and Rafe is buried under a mountain of snotty tissues? That sucks. Hold on.... Sorry, I gotta go. We're having a power-brunch."
People he said "power-brunch." What happened to the brother we all know and love?
Posted by debbie at 2:46 PM | Comments (3)
February 2, 2007
How to Eat
This morning, I woke up to find: that my warmest winter scarf was still looped around my neck, that I smelled distinctly like I had been roasting something meaty over a campfire, and that my friend had sent me an email informing me that in her purse she found the following souvenirs from the evening-- a tape measurer, a box of walnuts, and a brandy snifter. I also remembered going to this party (promoting the release of this ridiculous book) with free beer (key point), going to Eckerds to buy more beer, scarfing down a delicious pizza, and then trekking across the BQE to partake in a pot of dark chocolate fondue.
Whereas my new year's resolution was to eat healthier (um, still working on that one), my new February resolution is to take a step back from all the randomness. I can't help it though; lately I feel like my life is full of random moments and strange occurrences. Mostly it's my job and partly it has been writting in this blog, where my writing tends to gravitate towards the more jokey aspects of my life. But I know I feel happiest when things seem fresh and adventurous. Still, I feel like I could use a little more seriousness in my life, a little more time devoted to contemplation and reflection.
Anyhow, I have to get back to work; there's a batch of seal milk ice cream that needs to be churned.
On a side note, Michael Pollan, a fellow Berkeleyian who recently penned the Omnivore's Dilemma, wrote this very compelling essay on nutrition last week in the New York Times magazine. He makes a really strong case against processed foods and just as logical a case for, well, actual food. If you haven't checked it out already, do yourself a favor. It's quite long though, so if you're especially lazy/short on time the most important part is at the end, when he explains what he has learned based on his research sorting through all the mumbo-jumbo:
1. Eat food. Though in our current state of confusion, this is much easier said than done. So try this: Don’t eat anything your great-great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food. (Sorry, but at this point Moms are as confused as the rest of us, which is why we have to go back a couple of generations, to a time before the advent of modern food products.) There are a great many foodlike items in the supermarket your ancestors wouldn’t recognize as food (Go-Gurt? Breakfast-cereal bars? Nondairy creamer?); stay away from these.
2. Avoid even those food products that come bearing health claims. They’re apt to be heavily processed, and the claims are often dubious at best. Don’t forget that margarine, one of the first industrial foods to claim that it was more healthful than the traditional food it replaced, turned out to give people heart attacks. When Kellogg’s can boast about its Healthy Heart Strawberry Vanilla cereal bars, health claims have become hopelessly compromised. (The American Heart Association charges food makers for their endorsement.) Don’t take the silence of the yams as a sign that they have nothing valuable to say about health.
3. Especially avoid food products containing ingredients that are a) unfamiliar, b) unpronounceable c) more than five in number — or that contain high-fructose corn syrup. None of these characteristics are necessarily harmful in and of themselves, but all of them are reliable markers for foods that have been highly processed.
4. Get out of the supermarket whenever possible. You won’t find any high-fructose corn syrup at the farmer’s market; you also won’t find food harvested long ago and far away. What you will find are fresh whole foods picked at the peak of nutritional quality. Precisely the kind of food your great-great-grandmother would have recognized as food.
5. Pay more, eat less. The American food system has for a century devoted its energies and policies to increasing quantity and reducing price, not to improving quality. There’s no escaping the fact that better food — measured by taste or nutritional quality (which often correspond) — costs more, because it has been grown or raised less intensively and with more care. Not everyone can afford to eat well in America, which is shameful, but most of us can: Americans spend, on average, less than 10 percent of their income on food, down from 24 percent in 1947, and less than the citizens of any other nation. And those of us who can afford to eat well should. Paying more for food well grown in good soils — whether certified organic or not — will contribute not only to your health (by reducing exposure to pesticides) but also to the health of others who might not themselves be able to afford that sort of food: the people who grow it and the people who live downstream, and downwind, of the farms where it is grown. To make the “eat less” message a bit more palatable, consider that quality may have a bearing on quantity: I don’t know about you, but the better the quality of the food I eat, the less of it I need to feel satisfied. All tomatoes are not created equal.
6. Eat mostly plants, especially leaves. Scientists may disagree on what’s so good about plants — the antioxidants? Fiber? Omega-3s? — but they do agree that they’re probably really good for you and certainly can’t hurt. Also, by eating a plant-based diet, you’ll be consuming far fewer calories, since plant foods (except seeds) are typically less “energy dense” than the other things you might eat. Vegetarians are healthier than carnivores, but near vegetarians (“flexitarians”) are as healthy as vegetarians. Thomas Jefferson was on to something when he advised treating meat more as a flavoring than a food.
7. Eat more like the French. Or the Japanese. Or the Italians. Or the Greeks. Confounding factors aside, people who eat according to the rules of a traditional food culture are generally healthier than we are. Any traditional diet will do: if it weren’t a healthy diet, the people who follow it wouldn’t still be around. True, food cultures are embedded in societies and economies and ecologies, and some of them travel better than others: Inuit not so well as Italian. In borrowing from a food culture, pay attention to how a culture eats, as well as to what it eats. In the case of the French paradox, it may not be the dietary nutrients that keep the French healthy (lots of saturated fat and alcohol?!) so much as the dietary habits: small portions, no seconds or snacking, communal meals — and the serious pleasure taken in eating. (Worrying about diet can’t possibly be good for you.) Let culture be your guide, not science.
8. Cook. And if you can, plant a garden. To take part in the intricate and endlessly interesting processes of providing for our sustenance is the surest way to escape the culture of fast food and the values implicit in it: that food should be cheap and easy; that food is fuel and not communion. The culture of the kitchen, as embodied in those enduring traditions we call cuisines, contains more wisdom about diet and health than you are apt to find in any nutrition journal or journalism. Plus, the food you grow yourself contributes to your health long before you sit down to eat it. So you might want to think about putting down this article now and picking up a spatula or hoe.
9. Eat like an omnivore. Try to add new species, not just new foods, to your diet. The greater the diversity of species you eat, the more likely you are to cover all your nutritional bases. That of course is an argument from nutritionism, but there is a better one, one that takes a broader view of “health.” Biodiversity in the diet means less monoculture in the fields. What does that have to do with your health? Everything. The vast monocultures that now feed us require tremendous amounts of chemical fertilizers and pesticides to keep from collapsing. Diversifying those fields will mean fewer chemicals, healthier soils, healthier plants and animals and, in turn, healthier people. It’s all connected, which is another way of saying that your health isn’t bordered by your body and that what’s good for the soil is probably good for you, too.
Posted by debbie at 10:56 AM | Comments (2)
February 1, 2007
No Title Necessary. Really.
So usually here at work we produce a news magazine program for a big Japanese network. Sometimes the stories we produce are interesting and newsworthy, a la 60 Minutes. Sometimes the stories we produce are more...Hard Copy-esque. Other times, we do research and coordination for...other show that have no American equivalent.
Today a children's television producer in Japan has requested our help on a show he's doing, and this episode is about every kid's favorite thing- ice cream! Innocent enough. This is a show where kids write in their questions and then the show attempts to answer them. For example, a kid writes in and asks, "where does ice cream come from?" So just imagine for a moment the show beginning...
A child asks, "Can you make ice cream from a cow?" Yes, of course, stupid child. "What about a goat?" Yes, goat ice cream is gaining in popularity, especially at places like Whole Foods. Yawn. Who cares. So the show goes off and answers questions the child did not ask. Because they are trying to open up the minds of overly disciplined Japanese children.
Hey kiddos, what about ice cream made from the milk of a.......SEAL? Have you ever even thought of that? Or what about DOLPHIN ICE CREAM? Well, why don't we find out!
My co-worker is calling aquariums today to ask if we can please have some milk from their lactacting seals and dolphins because we would like to make ice cream with it. And wait, there's more!
A NIGERIAN will eat it! Now it's starting to make sense, because for a while there, I was confused. This is all I can gather so far from my eavesdropping. They have this "celebrity" host, you see, who I guess is Nigerian (perhaps something is lost in translation here), and he will eat the ice cream on camera. I feel really bad for my co-worker who has to make these calls (not to mention the Nigerian), but I just can't stop laughing. Right now she is calling SeaWorld.
"Yes, that's right, we would like to obtain some milk from one of your dolphins. Would it be possible maybe to tranquilize one of them so we can squeeze some milk out of it? And then make ICE CREAM out of it? No? Ok, I'm sorry to have bothered you....Wait, what if I told you a real live Nigerian will eat this ice cream? Hello?"
(Ok, she's not really saying that on the phone, but more or less. How do you ask this kind of question and not sound like you're making a prank call?)
Posted by debbie at 11:51 AM | Comments (1)
Will rare redheads be extinct by 2100?
Say it isn't so.
By the way, thanks, Renu, for sharing your Bad Hair book with me the other day. That book makes me chuckle, just like you do.
Posted by debbie at 11:01 AM | Comments (0)